Spaceport America

Gene Grant has an article in the Albuquerque Tribune on the new name for
New Mexico's coming spacport, Spaceport America. I think he hits a lot of
the right ideas.

I love the symmetry of those Monday events, and I'm getting warm on this spaceport idea.

Cape Canaveral vs. Las Cruces. Shuttle missions vs. private rocket trips. Dreadnoughts vs. sloops. Sounds like a fair fight to me.
...
Florida has a creaky, bloated, politicized infrastructure that is in the
business of continuing a mission laid in its lap more than 40 years ago. We have a bunch of sand, new millennium partners and an attitude.

Ever watch "This Week at NASA" on cable? Not exactly the X Games. Interesting, yes, but only in the sense of doing what it can to maintain what is already in place. If the news of the shuttle landing safely Monday didn't exactly blip on your personal radar, you're in good company.

There's going to be a certain cut of kid who will be attracted to the mission of NASA and the security of a government-funded gig. But my guess is there's a another kind of kid, perhaps yet unborn, who will find the idea of solving the technical problems of private spaceflight in the middle of a far-flung renegade state much more appealing.

Call them the Pirates of the White Sands. I don't know about you, but I want those
kids here.

I think they are already born and they are the reason this is
happening.